New York Times reporter Judy Miller has gone from heel to heroine to enigma – all in the space of about a year. And her entire story is starting to smell fishy.

Miller was released from a jail in suburban Washington on Thursday and testified Friday before a grand jury investigating national security leaks.

She spent 12 weeks in the slammer after refusing to testify before the grand jury where she would have been asked to reveal the name of the source who leaked to her the name of Valerie Plame, a longtime undercover agent working for the Central Intelligence Agency.

Now we learn that that Miller had a get-out-of-jail card the whole time. More than a year ago, Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff and apparent national-security leaker, released her from her promise.

He even signed a document saying she could go ahead and use his name. Ten days ago, he even called her in prison and begged her to use his name.

Miller says she wanted to be sure he was acting on his own volition and hadn’t been pressured. Who cares? He’s a big boy. He knows what he’s doing.

Here’s a more likely scenario: Miller, disgraced by her uncritical reporting on the Bush administration’s case for war, sought to redeem herself by playing journalistic Joan of Arc.

She martyred herself, went to jail and now writes a book.

We’re seeing another black eye here for The New York Times and journalists in general.